Diseases of the spine cause significant morbidity. These diseases include abnormalities of the vertebrae, the intervertebral discs, the facet joints, and connective tissue around the spine. Such abnormalities can be caused by a number of factors, such as mechanical injury, and can include degenerative disc disease, instability to the spine, vertebral misalignment, and abnormal motion between adjacent vertebrae. More severe disease may result in wear to the vertebral bony surfaces or cause nerve compression, and may ultimately produce severe pain. Further, these conditions are often chronic and progressive problems.
The treatments for spinal disorders may include long-term medical management or surgery. Medical management is generally directed at controlling the symptoms, such as pain, rather than correcting the underlying problems. For some patients this may require chronic use of pain medications, which may alter patient mental state or cause other negative side effects.
Another treatment option is surgery, which is often highly invasive and may significantly alter the existing spinal anatomy and function. For example, one surgical treatment for certain spinal conditions includes spinal fusion, whereby two or more vertebrae may be joined using bone grafts and/or synthetic implants. Fusion is irreversible and may significantly alter vertebral range-of-motion. Further, current surgical procedures are often only applicable to patients in a significantly progressed disease state.
Consequently, spinal surgeons have begun to develop more advanced surgical procedures and spinal stabilization and/or repair devices that are less invasive, may be reversible, and cause a less drastic alteration in the patient's normal anatomy and spinal function. These procedures may be used at an earlier stage of disease progression and, in some situations, may halt or reverse disease progression. For example, some spinal treatment systems include interspinous devices. Interspinous devices may be implanted between the spinous processes of two vertebrae or between the spinous process of the L5 vertebrae and the sacrum. These devices may provide various degrees of controlled movement of the spine, while supporting the adjacent vertebrae.
Some interspinous devices include an interspinous body portion that is anchored to adjacent spinous processes by wings extending from the body portion on opposite sides of the spinous process. Further, in some cases, the wings may be formed from a malleable material such as titanium. To facilitate implantation and secure attachment of the wings to the spinous processes, it may be desirable to bend or crimp the wings to control the distance between wings on opposite sides of a spinous process. However, bending or crimping the wings may be difficult using typical surgical instruments. Further, it may be desirable to bend or crimp opposing wings evenly to ensure appropriate attachment to the spinous process and to prevent undesirable distortion of the implant shape.
The present disclosure provides surgical instruments and instrument sets for use with interspinous devices. The surgical instruments may facilitate bending and/or crimping of interspinous devices to facilitate implantation and secure attachment of the devices to spinous processes.